


Matters of the Heart

by ShadowsOffense



Category: Legend of the Seeker, The Sword of Truth - Terry Goodkind
Genre: Also Love, Angst, Canon Compliant, Dark, Discussion of Abortion, F/F, F/M, Mord'Sith content, Multi, Psychological Torture, Torture, Triggers, Unplanned Pregnancy, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-10
Updated: 2013-12-10
Packaged: 2018-01-04 05:55:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1077347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsOffense/pseuds/ShadowsOffense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some sacrifices go unknown, unspoken, and undiscovered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matters of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Slight Book-Tv crossover, assume Tv canon for the most part.

The Lord Rahl frequently indulged in his Mord’Sith. Cara was second only to Denna, in his favor and in his bed, and through her Dahlia was often called upon as well.

Love like theirs was only tolerated in the ranks of the Mord’Sith if it was contained, controlled, secondary. If they could turn on one another without hesitation in the instant it was commanded of them. Only then was love permitted.

It was tested often.

Sometimes Dahlia and Cara were instructed to bring each other to orgasm and sometimes, in the second before orgasm, they were order to kill the other with an agiel to the heart. Dahlia used her own heartbeats to measure the lengths of time before Lord Rahl permitted her to revive Cara. She never asked if Cara did the same for her.

When Cara’s pregnancy became known, Lord Rahl did not choose to terminate it immediately as was the custom. He petted her, coddled her, and brought Dahlia to him in secret. Gave her the order.

Cara wasn’t to know, wasn’t to suspect, until she felt the agiel against her belly and once more against her heart.

Dahlia begged for the permission to take Cara someplace else, to recover and heal afterward; buying this time with her own pain in the Lord Rahl’s chamber. She told Cara the trip was for the baby’s protection, that it would be raised in secret, a hidden heir to the D’haran throne.

It was only when Cara placed a hand over her stomach, as they travelled through the wilderness together, a small smile touching her lips as she thought she was unobserved, that Dahlia realized what she was really doing.

Cara was young to be a mother and the child came early. This helped with Dahlia’s deception and only hours later she was urging Cara back to the People’s Palace after taking away the infant.

They had been gone too long, but not quite long enough to arouse suspicion. Cara accepted Dahlia’s order of silence as another measure of safety for her baby. It did not matter who she thought the boy was being protected from.

It did matter that Dahlia had unbound her braid and exchanged her leather for a stolen dress. It did matter that she had claimed to be a whore. It did matter that she told the healers of Raug'Moss, as she thrust the child in their arms, that the boy’s name was Drefan; the name of her own father.

It mattered that she betrayed her Lord Rahl.

It mattered even more that she hadn’t betrayed Cara.

And then Cara left; a new Lord Rahl, a new mission, and Dahlia didn’t know what mattered anymore.

* * *

The next time Lord Rahl order her to deceive Cara, lead her lovingly into a trap, Dahlia obeyed his order. But still, she never told, even when the Confessor’s hand was around her neck, of when she had loved beyond breaking.

And when the Wizard’s magic bent reality back on itself, Cara did for herself what Dahlia had done for her. But she bought the time for her deception with her own skin and an even earlier birth. And she lingered long enough to hear the healer’s worry for the mind of her child, so small, even if the body survived.

So maybe it didn’t matter that, when Cara heard her son giggle as she passed him into the healer’s hands in the same borrowed dress, she thought of another child giggling; forgotten in the very moment of remembrance. Maybe it didn’t matter, but she still named the boy Drefan.


End file.
